Mend it

Most of my clothes are thrifted, but that doesn't mean I don't take good care of them and try to extend their life as much as possible. Fabrics have a bigger environmental impact than most people might expect, and it's just being wasteful with money not to take care of clothes. I do this by not tossing items in the laundry mindlessly (if it's not dirty, it can be worn another time, without guilt!), by wearing an apron when doing "dirty" kitchen stuff, removing stains directly, line drying etc. As a fulltime homemaker, I definitely have some "accidents" every now and then. I'm a bit clumpsy, which is probably why I mentioned removing the stains. And I have a talent for snagging on sharp corners. For some reason, some clothes get stretched out too quickly. Apart from them being too stretched out, they're still in good shape, which makes tossing them such a waste. 

In a lot of cases, mending is really helpful to extend the life of many items from the wardrobe. I must admit that I'm terrible at needlework though. My mum used to sew, crochet, and knit, but unfortunately, it's not something I inherited from her! Yes, I know that everything can be learned. Still, I think I'll never be good at this, partially due to bad fine motor skills. Everyone is good at something else in the end, so it's not that I mind it that much. I'm fortunate to have a husband who is good at these things, and not only that, but in fact enjoys mending. So in my opinion, the perfect solution for a clumsy homemaker who still doesn't want to get rid of clothes that quickly. 

I think, without exaggerating, we've already saved hundreds of euros by mending clothes- just everytime there was something my husband mended (not only for me, but the entire family) we could have bought a new item. So that's defenitely a huge saving! It's amazing how clothes can be rescued from going into the landfill by minimal effort. Oh, and did I mention we don't even have a sewing machine? It's something that we'd like in the future, perhaps for even making all of our clothes altogether instead of just to repair. But for now, we don't have one, and are still be able to save so much money by mending our clothes. It's sometimes these small efforts that people tend to forget when trying to save money but small things really add up.